Former leading New Zealand publisher and bookseller, and widely experienced judge of both the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, talks about what he is currently reading, what impresses him and what doesn't, along with chat about the international English language book scene, and links to sites of interest to booklovers.

Thursday, March 16, 2017

Publishers Lunch

At Chronicle Books, AiLing
Tjan has been promoted to accounting supervisor, while Barrett Hooper is
now senior financial analyst and Christina
Mott moves up to distribution client account manager.

Ingram Content Group has tapped poetry writer and bookseller Stephen Sparks to
launch a poetry newsletter called Little Infinite.
Sparks owns Point Reyes Bookshop in Pt. Reyes, CA, and has contributed to a
number of literary outlets including the Paris
Review Daily, Tin
House, Music
& Literature magazine, BOMB
and Lithub.

ImprintsBonnier Publishing is expanding their Igloo Books mass market line, setting
up a US version, led by Jeremy
Nurnberg, now director of sales, North America for Igloo. He
reports to both Bonnier Publishing USA ceo Shimul Tolia and Igloo Books ceo Dan
Shepherd. They plan "a dedicated editorial and design team producing a
list of over 150 titles in the first year" that will "focus
specifically on the US and Canadian markets, and Nurnberg will "also lead
a new North American based sales force, with an aggressive recruitment that
will bring in multiple new sales positions covering every retail sector."

Nurnberg was formerly senior director of North American sales at Parragon.
Shepard says in the announcement, "We see a very bright future ahead with
the establishment of the new US imprint, Igloo Books, part of Bonnier
Publishing USA. As our growth continues globally, it is a natural next step to
build a North American team who will focus 100 percent on the needs of the US
consumer. We look forward to working with retail partners to bring the list to
market in the coming months and years." Bonnier bought
Igloo in 2014, when the company had annual sales of approximately £30 million.
(Today's press release says Igloo now does $60 million a year in business.)

Separately, Hachette Audio is partnering
with Wattpad under the banner Hachette
Audiobooks: Powered by Wattpad. They plan to produce 50
audiobooks based on Wattpad stories over the next year, launching in summer
2017.

ObituaryHenry
S. Lodge, diagnostician, Columbia Medical School
professor, and co-author of the Younger Next Year
series, died
on Friday of prostate cancer. The series is reported to have 2 million copies
in print, with translations in 21 languages. He is survived by the agent and
editor, his life partner Laura Yorke, as well as his two daughters.